What a step back
Cold shower for Ferrari at Zandvoort. The two reds in qualifying did not go beyond fifth and sixth position, respectively with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, and tomorrow in the Dutch GP they will both start from the third row. A step back especially for Leclerc, who yesterday in the Sprint Qualifying was third just a few thousandths from pole and who this morning in the Sprint had brought home a splendid second place. Instead, today’s Q3 saw him fall to P6, taking four tenths from poleman Lando Norris. The drizzle that fell in the final phase of qualifying, however, according to Leclerc, has nothing to do with this flop.
Read more Antonelli: “In curve-1 I lost two tenths, what a pity. Tomorrow I will attack using my head”
“No, in my opinion it was the pace that wasn’t there – the Monegasque candidly admitted to Sky Sport F1 microphones – yesterday [for us] everything went perfectly, while when I spoke with George and Lando yesterday it didn’t seem to me that they had done everything perfectly. We knew they had more margin than us”.
Read more Hamilton’s explanation: “We lacked something with the tires in these conditions”
The power unit “does strange things”
Then, however, from the Ferrari driver came a reprimand to the team: “Today we made a bit of a mistake with the engine strategy – Leclerc explained – we changed some things during qualifying and this is never optimal, because arriving in Q3 the power unit did some strange things. Chance for tomorrow? Surely [this qualifying] makes life much harder for us, but it is also true that there are 72 laps to do. With the race pace we have shown, anything is possible, but it will be a tougher race,” concluded #16.
